North American Missile Shield

[MagicRat]

The US has been lobbying Canada hard to be a participant in the proposed continental ballistic missile defence shield. Logistically it makes sense. But the Canadian Gov't has been undecided, although recently it seems more likely they will decline to participate.

Should the US develop space-based weapons to counter a theoretical threat from other nations? Is this just escalating another arms race?

If so, whom might stage an attack? Russia? North Korea? China? All these countries, (yes N.Korea too) would economically suffer greatly from a damaged or bombed US, (not to mention a heated retaliatory strike) so it would not be in their best interest to do so.

Do you think an expensive missile shield is useless because a future terrorist attack likely will use very primitive methods? Or will Osama buy a "Dong II" missile from North Korea and use that?

Can the US afford to build it? Their deficit spending has already soared due to Iraq and other commitments.

IMHO I suspect the interest and commitment for such a program may well evaporate after Bush leaves the White House.

I also believe that Canada should spend it's military budget improving its naval, NATO and UN commitments which are already underfunded.

Your thoughts?

[Heep]

I don't agree with it. Now, mind you, I haven't closely looked at all the facts, so I might very well have an uneducated opinion on the matter - if so feel free to correct me.

In my opinion, it just escalates tensions. The world should be disarming, not re-arming. To me, this seems like it makes for the beginnings of a new Cold War, with everybody constantly wondering who will pull the trigger first. Also, to me it says that any current leaders participating in this "Cold war" are incompetent and unable to settle differences diplomatically and peacefully. More than that, it seems to say that America is scared. They realize they've turned nearly the entire world against them, and are building their wall...

America can do what they please, but I'm strongly against Canada following the same path. Who would attack Canada anyways?

[taranaki]

The population of the US has not been lobbying Canada at all for this alliance.I can't recall any letters to the major newspapers demanding that this alliance be forged, or that the project is even neccesary. Like the alleged 'coalition of the willing',it is another example of the current millitary solution-obsessed administration trying to legitimise a bad idea by dragging other countries into the equation.
Has nothing been learned from history?for decades, Americsa and the soviets poured billions into pointing weapons at each other istead of trying to reach civil terms for mutual non-aggression.

It wasn't until Gorbachev broke the cycle of stupid posturing that the world became,briefly,a safer place. The 'star wars' defence system is little more than an employment scheme for the military.Any product that it creates will be worthless against terrorism,and could not prevent another WTC type attack.The Cold War is over and only a fool would attempt to restart it. A project such as this would require decades of development and the GNP of a small continent. Even if America elected an admninistration foolish enough to commence this monument to national inseecurity,the average American would probably tire of pouring money into it long before it produced a contribution to their defence.

Spend the money more wisely.Send a man to Mars.I have a particular man in mind.

[Heep]

Originally Posted by taranaki

The population of the US has not been lobbying Canada at all for this alliance.

Correct, but the government is. Unfortunately Paul Martin is keen to suck up to the Americans. Chretien was, but I think after turning down the request to aid in Iraq, he'd grown balls and was more willing to object.

[YogsVR4]

The missle defense shield will not cause an arms race for the simple matter that it can only shoot down a few dozen missles concurrently. Russia, UK and France have more then enough missles to overwhelm the system if they actually wanted to attack the US with nukes. The shield is for the Irans, North Koreas and to a limited degree China.

The real threat of the missle shield is who we could sell the technology to. An arms race would escalate between India and Pakistan if we sold it to either (though the race is on and nobody is paying much attention). How about Taiwan, South Korea or Japan. Think that would put a scare in to China and North Korea?

As for missles being dismantled. They have been. Over 60,000 have been dismantled of the 70,000 built by the US. http://www.thebulletin.org/article_n...ofn=jf04norris I know that leaves over ten thousand nukes but they are still being dismantled. I don't have the figures for the Russians, but from what Yuri (one of my Russian collegues) tells me, over two thirds of their stock piles have been dismantled. Libya voluntarily stopped their development. South Africa stopped theirs.

Canada can choose to join or not. However, putting things in place to protect citizens here is both reasonable and worthwhile.

[Heep]

70,000 nukes built by the US? Why on earth...

Wouldn't that be more than enough to destroy every major city in the world?

It's sad that the US has invaded so many places now that all it's citizens have to live in constant fear...

[Thourun]

Originally Posted by Heep

70,000 nukes built by the US? Why on earth...

Wouldn't that be more than enough to destroy every major city in the world?

It's sad that the US has invaded so many places now that all it's citizens have to live in constant fear...

Each one is just a giant political tool, so is this star wars type project, money could be much better spent if we werent constantly fighting with eachother over trivial tripe.

[YogsVR4]

Originally Posted by Heep

70,000 nukes built by the US? Why on earth...

Wouldn't that be more than enough to destroy every major city in the world?

It's sad that the US has invaded so many places now that all it's citizens have to live in constant fear...

Because the USSR built over 90,000 nukes. If you don't remember your history, read up on MAD. Look up Krushchev and his wonderful shoe pounding speach at the UN. Recall the nations that the USSR engulfed at the time both countries were arming. The point is that those arms are being dismantled. Only Russia and the US are doing it right now. China, France and Britian aren't. India and Pakistan are in their own arms race. Iran and North Korea look to join. It might be time to lay off bitching about what the US did or is doing when it comes to nukes and look at the folks who are doing the opposite.


I don't live in fear and a quick ask around the guys sitting near me also indicate that they are not in fear. Perhaps we missed that memo

[Heep]

Originally Posted by YogsVR4

Because the USSR built over 90,000 nukes. If you don't remember your history, read up on MAD. Look up Krushchev and his wonderful shoe pounding speach at the UN. Recall the nations that the USSR engulfed at the time both countries were arming. The point is that those arms are being dismantled. Only Russia and the US are doing it right now. China, France and Britian aren't. India and Pakistan are in their own arms race. Iran and North Korea look to join. It might be time to lay off bitching about what the US did or is doing when it comes to nukes and look at the folks who are doing the opposite.


I don't live in fear and a quick ask around the guys sitting near me also indicate that they are not in fear. Perhaps we missed that memo

Actually I was never taught that stuff in history - I may have been interested if I had. Instead I had to learn about crap like the first railroad and whatnot

I had no intention of laying on the US with that post, I just only mentioned the US's nukes because that was the only number I had. I'm also very glad to see the US and Russia disarming. My post was simply shock at the sheer number that have been built in the US alone - complete waste of money, IMO, when 100 or so would do the trick just fine. I had always assumed the US and Russia had around 100 or so each, not tens of thousands...

About living in fear - in my opinion, feeling the need to have a missle defence system implies fear. Perhaps not an ever-present, overwhelming paranoia, but I guess more a general level of concern. For example, I lock the doors of my car when I leave it - I'm not constantly, consciously in fear that it will be entered/stolen, but it's a very unfortunate general concern that I wish I didn't have to have.

I guess I should have said that it's sad the US has to live in general concern about protecting themselves against attacks...

[YogsVR4]

I had always assumed the US and Russia had around 100 or so each, not tens of thousands...

Heck, the Russians and US have missles called MRVs which means Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles. They contain multiple warheads (perhaps up to a dozen). Boomers (subs) may have a couple dozen MIRVs on each boat.

Needless to say, there are a lot of nukes still out there. Though the number of them are dropping, the number of countries getting them is increasing.

http://www.cdi.org/nuclear/database/nukestab.html

[Heep]

Yeesh!

Shows how much I think about war, I guess

[Thourun]

You were never taught about modern warfare or the cold war?

[taranaki]

If our government tabled a plan to spend massive amounts of money on military hardware that was potentially worthless, they'd be laughed out of office.The idea that one nation needs to have enough weapons to destroy the entire population of the world 20 times over simply because another nation could do it 19 times is like something out of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party.

Two quotes spring to mind........

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

and

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

These are two of the cornerstones of Uncle Sam's philosophy.Sadly,Uncle Sam appears to have taken a vacation, usurped dy an administration of cowards,bullies and fools.America has gone from being a trusted friend of civilised behaviour to the weird old guy with the high fence and the Rottweilers.

The current administration has lost the plot.Hopefully Uncle Sam will show up again soon.

[MagicRat]

Good comments from all.
The missile shield is just like the nukes, as much a political tool as a useful weapon.

Since the military and related research and industry is so important to the US economy, I am sure there are many highly interested companies and regions lobbying Washington for this program.

Bully other nations?? Sure. Canadians can see it now. Bush was in Ottawa (our capital) this past week and in a very blunt speech brought an old but well known Canadian conecpt that the US is an elephant and Canada is the mouse........that is, if the US rolls over, we get squashed. As 83% of our foreign trade goes to the US (with a hefty trade surplus for us,) we are vulnerable.

3 days ago our Prime Minister told the press (in French) that Canada will not participate. Today he said (in English) that we will go along so long as it does not involve orbiting weapons platforms in space.

With this rapid change of policy, I can only think that the US is threatening to roll over..........

[RedLightning]

Originally Posted by Heep

It's sad that the US has invaded so many places now that all it's citizens have to live in constant fear...

Hmm, I dont live in fear. My country just likes being prepared. Its not like this world is getting to be a better place to live anyways.

Originally Posted by taranaki

Spend the money more wisely.Send a man to Mars.I have a particular man in mind.

I have a certain man in mind too. But I have a diferent place to send him.